Night School

by Caroline B. Cooney

There was nothing good in the room.

  “I am glad to hear the silence,” said the instructor, and horribly, his voice was also silent. Autumn could hear it, but it did not speak. This was like reading a soundtrack. You couldn’t do it, but she was doing it. I have to get out of here, she thought. My body told me on the way in that the place was too dark, much too dark. Go dark! I have to get out of the dark—

  You are accepted into this course of study, said the instructor. A soundless burst of laughter filled the room, which was not possible, either: It was like reading a comic book, where a huge dripping black word LAUGHTER filled the panel, but there was nothing funny and nothing comic in this room.

  The body Autumn no longer had could not panic: Its heart could not beat faster, its lungs could not starve for oxygen.

  And its legs could no longer run.

  There will be, the instructor added, and even though it was silent, it filled the room and her ears and her soul, no way to drop out of Night Class now.

  Chapter 4

  IT WAS LIKE THE earthquake of the previous year. The world shifted under their feet. Ten seconds, fifteen seconds of earthquake and they had no longer occupied the same room. But in this case, they no longer occupied the same bodies.

  They were shifted through the fault lines of the universe.

  It hit Ned ferociously, as if he’d stupidly hung a huge mirror over his bed prior to the earthquake, and now a spear of glass had sliced his heart and soul.

  Ned had to get in touch with the others. He had to establish that they and he still existed, still occupied the same earth, but his hands would not do it, for he no longer had hands. He would have to do it by voice, and yet prevent the voice from revealing to these kids, whom he still wanted to impress, that he was terrified. This is so weird, said Ned. He seemed to hear himself off a tape, as if he no longer existed.

  If I’m dead, he thought, they could just play me back and listen to me anyway. Please answer me, please one of you answer me.

  It’s darker than any dark I’ve ever been dark in, if you know what I mean, said Autumn.

  Ned knew what she meant. He loved her for speaking, for letting him know that wherever he was, he wasn’t alone in there.

  It doesn’t feel normal, said Autumn. Her nonvoice was more high-pitched, more nervous, than her usual voice.

  Ned and Autumn both recognized the instructor’s voice when it came, even though it, too, had no sound. You are disembodied now. Naturally when you have no vocal cords your voice will sound different.

  Autumn was so relieved. The instructor, the leader, was still there. He/she/it might be creepy, but all was not lost as long as an adult was present. Although she was not sure “adult” was the word. Old, yes. Primitive ancient old.

  Mariah was trying not to participate. I’m shadow? she thought. I have no flesh and bone? I’m darkness through which solid things can now pass?

  She tried very hard to climb out of her too active imagination and find the real world here. What is really going on? she thought. Four people sitting in some creepy classroom with the lights, turned off, listening to a voice that has no sound? Why aren’t we just getting up and leaving?

  Perhaps it’s a psychology test. The sort where people get tested on remote cameras to see how they behave in weird situations. Perhaps everybody here but me is in on it, and they want to gauge my reaction, see what I do. Perhaps I’m the only one being tested.

  But what could the test be?

  I should have dropped out, thought Mariah. Even if Andrew is here in the class, I should have dropped out. What is an SC? I don’t want to find out what an SC is.

  What if we get stuck here? cried Autumn, and her voice was sort of out loud, but not really. What if we can’t get back?

  Mariah might not exist, but she still had temperature, and hers dropped to zero. Fear froze her. What if we can’t get back? It was an old fear for Mariah: getting stuck in the pretend, unable to get back to the real.

  In this class, said the instructor, we will control the dark. It will not control us. The dark here is warmly scented. Let go of your thinking. Let go of your imagining. Feel how the dark supports you.

  Disembodied, thought Andrew. How astonishing. I must write about it. Any newspaper, any grocery tabloid, would buy my article. Or perhaps I can film us as we don’t exist! Any television talk show would buy my footage in a heartbeat! Yes! This is the beginning!

  I regret, said the instructor, that you will not be able to capture yourself on film, Andrew. The shadow state does not show up on camera. But you may bring your camera along on our first expedition.

  It was most odd to be watching, but have no body and no eyes and no ears to do it with. Even more oddly, Andrew could lift the camcorder but not feel it between the fingers he did not have.

  Our first expedition, thought Andrew. That implies that we will have more than one. I wonder what an SC is. Do they film?

  The instructor was right. Autumn could actually rest on the dark. It was not the sweet dark she had brought from home. It was a heavy slick gross dark, an oil spill of a dark. She felt it drip from her thoughts. Her thoughts would suffocate in this kind of dark unless she shared them.

  Guess what, Autumn confided to the class she could not see. There was a kind of frenzied shiver in her confession. I’m here to break away. To leave the group. To do things on my own. To be just Autumn, and not Julie-Brooke-Autumn-Danielle.

  The rest of the class was impressed. Autumn, they said, that’s wonderful. You’ll be an individual, not just a slot. You need to know yourself, they all agreed, be your own person.

  Ned, too, had leaned back in the dark and the dark stripped him of failure and fault, leaving him exactly like the others. He felt safe enough to ask a very important question. But what, said Ned cautiously, if your own person isn’t very exciting?

  Some people are late bloomers, Andrew assured him.

  Andrew, nobody likes blooming late, Ned said, confessing as easily as Autumn. Everybody likes blooming on time.

  That’s so poetic, said Andrew; Ned, that’s wonderful. I can use that for film narration.

  To think that Andrew had complimented him. Ned felt great. He was usually very aware of his body, because he had spent so much of his life tripping and stumbling. It was pure joy to have no substance. He had shed the great inconvenience of body. He was floating, and it was warm and cushioned. And he, Ned, was inching into this wonderful group.

  Andrew Todd would use his words in the narrative of a film. Ned was willing to do anything for Andrew. He might let me do more than write a single line, thought Ned, he might let me help, and have my name in the credits, and work with him again.

  And now, said the instructor, pulling them back, the dark.

  They straightened, and class began, and it was time to pay attention.

  Andrew himself could see perfectly. It was just that there was nothing to see but shadow. He tried to focus on the instructor. Andrew wondered if the instructor was human. Was it instead a computer? Screen? Some sort of Internet? A hologram? Living smoke?

  We are now, said the instructor, his voice shifting the shadows, becoming one. We are a team now, and we will do everything together, and do it well. We are becoming night people.

  His voice lulled them, like a mother with a baby.

  The room grew even darker, as if they were in a dark glass bottle whose cap was being tightened.

  Suppose, said the instructor, that you own the shadows and the sounds of night, and are in charge of all that is hidden and secret.

  Mariah snapped awake. The very word secret opened all her doors. Was the instructor implying that people who owned the night could own the secrets?

  I don’t want Andrew to know the extent of my crush. I don’t want Autumn to know that I wish I could be her, or be part of her group. I don’t want us to talk without voices and see without eyes. I want regular friendships the regular way.

  Mariah sat very still, wanting it to be over, wanting to
be home.

  We begin, said the instructor, like a beloved newscaster giving the daily dose of information, we begin tonight by finding an SC.

  It’s wrong, thought Mariah. I can feel how wrong it is. I don’t even know what an SC is and I can tell I shouldn’t, either.

  Fear pierced her as if she still existed.

  Have you ever been afraid for no reason? asked the instructor. Once, were you home alone in the dark, and did a stair creak and frighten you? Did a light go off when there was nobody to do it? Did a door open with nobody to open it?

  Mariah trembled. I’ve been afraid for Bevin, she thought. Afraid he would do something terrible in order to escape all that’s terrible, I’m afraid now. I’m afraid he’s at home, wishing for … but what does Bevin wish for?

  Did you ever sense that somebody unknown is in there with you? In your room? Under your bed? Touching your hand?

  Ned shrugged. The dark is fine with me, he thought. It’s people who make me panic. I’ve been afraid of society. It’s true. I’ve been afraid of the gathering of people, of crowds and groups and pairs and classes.

  Fear, whispered the teacher. Especially when you are alone. Especially when you are alone in the dark.

  Autumn closed her eyes to keep away the dark, but it went after her, its little fingers curling around her. She had not been afraid in the dark, walking over here. But I should have been, she thought. It was out there with me. It knew, even when I didn’t know, like a gang looking out of broken windows, waiting for a victim, fear knew I was out there all alone.

  I’ve been afraid, thought Andrew. I see it now. Afraid of life. I’ve kept busy to cover up life. Blessed dark, for letting me see myself. I am a watcher. A reporter and a filmer of other people’s lives. I don’t have to live my own.

  We take control of the Night, said the instructor. We bring fear to the weak and panic to the fragile.

  That doesn’t sound right, thought Mariah. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

  We begin, explained the voice, by being scouts. We want to find an example of a person alone in the dark.

  The instructor required them to say this sentence over and over. A person alone in the dark. Autumn and Andrew and Ned repeated it until it had no meaning.

  A person alone in the dark.

  A person alone in the dark.

  Perhaps it was mass hysteria, like witches in Salem. For there were Autumn and Andrew and Ned oddly indistinguishable from each other, as if they were the same person, or dressed in the same uniform. What could those three possibly have in common? And yet they sat half-rocking, dreamy profiles content and ready. Ready for what? A person alone in the dark.

  Hypnosis, thought Mariah. Definitely hypnosis. It didn’t touch me. When the psychologists finish scoring my testing, will I turn out stronger or weaker or just different?

  Stronger, Mariah, said the teacher. You are much much stronger than the rest. It is a wonderful facility you have, to be so strong. You have potential. You may be the foremost student in our class.

  Me? Strong? Mariah doubted it. In her heart of hearts (and nobody had a heart more layered than Mariah’s) she knew she was weaker, because all her triumphs were pretend.

  Pretend … Andrew … she’d forgotten Andrew. She was sitting next to him and had forgotten him. Incredible. What did it mean?

  The instructor’s voice went even beyond silence. It was inside her head, a little whispering pine, rustling only in Mariah’s dark. I know your secrets, Mariah, said the instructor. Shall I reveal them? Shall I tell Andrew and Autumn the content of your dreams? Shall I let Andrew know that you stalk him in your heart?

  I don’t stalk him! she thought. I love him.

  Are you sure he would call it love? Are you sure he wouldn’t call it a sick, depraved obsession? The instructor’s laugh swelled like a helium balloon inside her head, filling the place where her lovely daydreams used to be.

  Please don’t tell! I won’t have a chance with Andrew if he knows the truth. Autumn would laugh at me. She’d tell Julie and Brooke and Danielle and they’d laugh at me. Andrew would avoid me in …

  I might tell. I want you to know that. I might tell everybody everything, Mariah.

  So her secrets were the property of this screenless, pageless, bodyless thing up there talking.

  Andrew, Ned, and Autumn awoke from their rocking repetition.

  Mariah, give us an SC, said the instructor.

  What is an SC?

  A person alone in the dark. Name one.

  Of course, the name that came immediately to Mariah’s mind was Bevin, and she shot that out of existence, keeping her brother’s name unthought, unworded, unformed. For if ever a person was alone in the dark, it was Bevin. She could not name Bevin. He was too close to the edge.

  A name, please, Mariah, said the voice sharply.

  Come on, Mariah, said Andrew impatiently. He knows you’ve thought of somebody.

  Come on, Mariah, said Autumn anxiously. This is scary. Just name somebody alone in the dark, and you can end it.

  Or begin it, thought Mariah. What will it begin when I name a person alone in the dark?

  Come on, Mariah, said Ned. All we need is a name.

  Mariah kept the two syllables of Bevin’s name to herself.

  Fine, said the voice. Which secret shall I discuss first, Mariah?

  What secrets? asked Andrew.

  He actually turned to her, and she actually saw him: not the real Andrew; perhaps nobody ever knew the real somebody else, but a facsimile of Andrew; the negative of his photograph. She could see his waiting half-smile, wanting to know the secrets. And she knew absolutely that Andrew would feel invaded by her daydreams; he would feel she had no right to try to own him when he hadn’t offered.

  Mr. Phillips, said Mariah quickly. Mr. Phillips, after all, was only a substitute person himself. Mr. Phillips, alone in the library, said Mariah quickly, he’ll be the perfect SC.

  There was quiet.

  A rich satisfied quiet, like after a good meal.

  Four students and an instructor contemplated the existence of Mr. Phillips and his perfection as an SC.

  But what does SC stand for? asked Autumn.

  An SC? repeated the instructor. Through the dark came a moonlike slice of smile.

  That’s what the guillotine cut off when I came in the door, thought Mariah, that piece of smile.

  An SC is a Scare Choice. Thank you, Mariah, for supplying tonight’s Scare Choice.

  Chapter 5

  THE FOUR CLASS MEMBERS and their instructor were nothing but darkness, shifting and reforming. They filtered into the library like poison into a town reservoir.

  Mariah tried to prevent her shade from joining the group. What was going to happen here? What were they going to do? She didn’t want to do it. But she no longer had control. She was merely part of a bleaker, deeper darkness.

  Bevin is safe, Mariah told herself, that’s what counts. I didn’t give them Bevin’s name.

  Through a dark now full of herself and the others, Mariah saw the Scare Choice. He didn’t know yet. They were at that fraction in time where things could still stop; where the victim didn’t yet know he was a victim.

  Ned kept himself in the center of the class, for there he felt protected from his own weakness. What if the class realized that he was a lonely castoff himself? Only inches from being a Scare Choice?

  Although Ned had never heard of an SC till a minute ago, he saw that Mariah had named a perfect one. The man reeked weakness, nervous fingers gripping a pencil too hard, shallow forehead wrinkled with worry that he might incorrectly grade some other teacher’s papers. Probably he felt protected by the knowledge that he was the only occupant of the building.

  But he wasn’t the only occupant.

  Night Class was there.

  The Scare Choice sensed something. He shuffled two papers for no reason except to occupy his fingers. He looked out of the corner of his eyes without moving his head. A little twitch ap
peared in his cheek.

  Andrew squinted into his camera. How metal and plastic could pass through a plaster wall fascinated Andrew. The class had not existed as they passed through the walls of the library and surrounded the SC, and yet the camcorder did exist, and somehow it had also moved through the wall.

  The shadows he filmed seemed to have body, not merely light deflection. Andrew wondered how much would actually show up on the film. He circled the SC for a better angle.

  The SC noticed. The SC held himself very still, trying to analyze the change in the atmosphere around him. It was an interesting reaction. Very primitive. Like a white rabbit freezing in the snow to hide.

  Andrew focused, and now the thin nervous facial features of the SC appeared right in the little crosshatch. Sort of like aiming a rifle, thought Andrew. I’m shooting him.

  It’s like joining a very exclusive club, thought Autumn, just as she passed through the library walls. She had always wanted to be in a club with passwords and secrets. Julie-Brooke-Autumn-Danielle did everything in public so as to be noticed and admired. But she, Autumn, would do things in the dark. It was so strange, to have no body. She who admired her body and its clothing, her body and its lovely hair, her body and its beautiful face—she had no body right now. She was not even a voice.

  And yet, the SC knew she was there.

  The SC wet his lips and began mouth-breathing, already too frightened to get enough air. Autumn could not get over how much like a little animal the SC was now: panting heaving chest, darting eyes, helpless surrender even before anything had happened. And he went on trying to look normal, still correcting papers, still moving his pencil, still hunched down close to the desk surface.

  But every primitive response in his body—for the SC still had his body—had gone into high gear. His body knew while his mind was still rejecting it. There’s no evidence, his mind and his eyes were saying, calm down. But his body knew.

  Autumn, too, knew.

  She was comfortable in a tight group, had been part of a tight group for a long, long time. She liked the spread of groups: the way you were included in the action yet excluded from the blame.